Catholic Bishops of Canada Reveal $11.5 Million Raised and over 60 Projects for Healing and Reconciliation at their Assembly - VIDEO

On the second day of the Canadian Catholic Bishops' Plenary Assembly the bishops spoke about the Indigenous Reconciliation Fund and pastoral accompaniment of Indigenous peoples, the Canadian participation at the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of BIshops and they heard a presentation from the standing committee for Responsible Ministry and the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons.
Bishop Pierre Goudreault of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, CCCB Co-Treasurer said:
The plenary assembly started as we always do with prayer. The business of the day started with a report of the ad hoc committee on Ministries; the ministry of lecture Acolyte and catechist. The members of those committee have been working hard during the past month they have been studying  the Pastoral liturgical and canonical implications of those three Ministries. They are preparing a document which will be kind of guidelines for the admission, and formations of candidates to those Ministries. We received a report on the reconciliation fund and also on the pastoral accompaniment of our indigenous brothers and sisters.

Bishop William McGratten of Calgary said: Well we're currently and have been working with many of the initiatives with our indigenous communities furthering reconciliation and healing. We're also talking about how we are continuing the indigenous reconciliation fund, the collection of funds has allowed local dioceses to develop these committees to work with their local communities to identify projects. Also at the national level we've collected close to 11.5 million and over 60 projects across Canada have been funded already. So I see that there has been a great sense of solidarity in raising funds but also in some sense of subsidiarity. It's at the local level that these diocesan and communities are working with indigenous and beginning this path of accompaniment; identifying the projects that will promote healing and Reconciliation. I see that that's the key; it's at the local level that healing forgiveness and Reconciliation will be possible. It's what our Holy Father said in his penitential pilgrimage; here the real work begins at the local level and many ways the indigenous reconciliation fund is a means to promote that on our diocesan and level and in our country.
Bishop Goudreault: In the afternoon we also had the report from Archbishop Paul Andre Durocher who is the chair of the standing committee for responsible Ministry for the protection of minors and vulnerable persons.
 Archbishop Paul Andre Durocher: This afternoon the standing committee for responsible Ministry looked at two questions we brought two questions to the Bishops for study one of them is the question of the relationship of clergy with adults who are in positions of vulnerability and the other question was codes of conduct for members of the clergy and other people involved in Ministry in our church. When we published our guidelines for responsible Ministry in 2018, those topics were hardly touched on but the me too movement for example has taught us that a lot of adults who are in positions of vulnerability because they're not the ones with the power; whether it be in the World of Sports or of Arts or unfortunately even of the church, can find themselves at the mercy of somebody who has that power. So we need to be attentive to that we need to be safeguarding against that and at the same time one of the safeguards is developing codes of conduct for people and many dioceses are starting to work on those codes of conduct. So today, we had one rep from the diocese of the archdiocese of St Boniface who presented the code of conduct that they've developed there as an example for the other dioceses.
At the end of the day, we also spoke about the next Synod on synodality and the participation of some Bishops and and women and men who will take part of that uh event in October.
Cardinal Cyprien Lacroix: I'd say what we did was like a practice run we uh took some of the questions that will be uh talked about at the synod and we went in small groups and took each question and shared to see how profound this brings us to reflect on our way of being church today. It's not just about themes it's about us our relationship with each othe,r how we listen to each other how we listen together to the Lord, to his spirit. I think that is what we're going to experience in Rome during the whole month of the syndod.